| Libertarian socialism is a political philosophy dedicated to opposing coercive forms of authority and
social hierarchy, in particular the institutions of capitalism and the state. It has gone by
various names: libertarian communism, anarcho-communism, anarcho-syndicalism, left-anarchism, and sometimes simply anarchism. Libertarian socialists believe in the abolition of privately held means of production and
abolition of the state as unnecessary and harmful institutions.
Libertarian socialism essentially denies the legitimacy of private property, and is thus a left-libertarian philosophy. In
contrast, right-libertarian philosophies, such as that of the United States Libertarian Party, have very different views with regard to property, though
they also oppose government influence in personal affairs. The term "libertarianism", when used alone, may commonly refer to
right-libertarianism in some countries, such as the United States, and left-libertarianism in others.
Overview
Libertarian socialists call themselves anarchists except when necessary to disambiguate or disassociate themselves with
others, typically the anarcho-capitalists, who use the same
term. Additionally, some libertarian socialists refer to themselves as anarchists or communists to differentiate themselves from
Libertarians. These philosophies share a professed love of liberty and opposition to
statism, but there are differences regarding economic issues such as private
property.
The basic philosophy of libertarian socialism is summed up in the name: adherents believe that management of the common good
(socialism) is necessary, but that this should be done in a manner that increases
individual liberty and avoids concentration of power or authority (libertarianism). Some libertarian socialists say individual
liberty and societal harmony are necessarily antagonistic, and anarchist philosophy must balance the two. Others feel that the
two are symbiotic, and that the liberty of the individual guarantees the harmony of the society and vice-versa.
All the critiques that anarchists develop are based on principles of decentralization of power and authority. So, while
anarchists have a critique of capitalism similar to Marxism, they diverge in that anarchists also reject capital due to its tendency to lead to concentration of
power (in the form of wealth). Libertarian socialists advocate freedom while denying
the legitimacy of private property, since private property, in the form of capital, leads to the exploitation of others with less
economic power and thus infringes on the exploited class's individual freedoms. Right-libertarians, by contrast, believe that
liberty is impossible without the enforcement of private property economics.
Anti-capitalism
Libertarian socialists differentiate between the idea of authority based on power, and authority based on knowledge or skills.
The term "power", in this instance, refers to the social or physical dominance of one individual over another. They oppose all
authority based on political power, economic power, or hierarchy.
Libertarian socialists believe that all social bonds should be developed by individuals who have an equal amount of bargaining
power. This means that an accumulation of economic power in the hands of a few is no different than the centralization of
political power, since both reduce the bargaining power, and thus the freedom of the other individuals in society. If freedom is
valued, then society must work towards a system in which individuals have the power to decide economic issues along with
political issues. They seek to replace coercive authority and hierarchy with direct democracy and voluntary federation in all
aspects of life, including physical communities and economic enterprises.
Libertarian socialists believe that productive property should be held
communally and controlled democratically. For them, the only moral private properties are personal possessions.
Unlike anarcho-capitalists, traditional anarchists believe
there is little difference between threat of physical violence as a means of coercion and political or economic coercion. Thus the libertarian socialist argues that the anarcho-capitalist
distinction between economic coercion, which they allow by the centralized accumulation of productive property and wealth, and
physical coercion is an untenable dichotomy. Further, libertarian socialists
argue that even under such a dichotomy, physical coercion is still endorsed by capitalists in the form of a series of physically
coercive institutions that uphold property privilege. Libertarian socialists believe that freedom can only exist in a society
that allows for equal bargaining power.
The relationships generated by ownership determine whether something is a possession or property. A property title grants
owners the advantage of extorting payment from those who wish to use it when it is not in use by the owner. Possession, on the
other hand, is not compatible with this form of extortion because it grants no special rights to those things which are not in
use.
Opposition to the state
Anarchists are most famous for opposing the existence of states or government. Indeed, in the past many anarchists refused to
defend themselves in court because they did not wish to participate in coercive state
institutions, instead choosing to go to jail or die.
The critique of states is built on the same principle opposing concentration of authority based on power, which, according to
anarchists, inevitably leads to abuse.
In lieu of states, libertarian socialists seek to organize themselves into voluntary institutions (usually called collectives
or syndicates) which use direct democracy or consensus for their decision-making process. Some libertarian socialists advocate
combining these institutions using rotating, recallable delegates (http://wiktionary.org/pac/Delegate) to higher-level federations. Others, however, have advanced strong critiques of federated systems, and these federations have
rarely been carried out in practice. (For an example of anarchist federations, see Spanish anarchism.)
Contrary to popular opinion, libertarian socialism has not traditionally been a utopian movement, tending to avoid dense theoretical analysis or prediction of what a future society would or should
look like. The tradition instead has been that such decisions cannot be made now, and must be made through struggle and
experimentation, so that the best solution can be arrived at democratically and organically, and to base the direction for
struggle on established historical example.
Anarchists often suggest that this focus on exploration over predetermination is one of their great strengths. They point out
that the success of science at explaining the natural world comes from its methods and its adherence to open rational
exploration, not its conclusions; whereas traditional dogmatic explanations of naturalistic phenomena have proved almost useless
at explaining anything in the natural world.
Although critics claim that anarchists are avoiding questions they cannot answer, anarchists believe that no one knows all of
the best ways to produce certain outcomes within society, that a methodological approach to exploration is the best way to
achieve our social goals. To an anarchist, dogmatic approaches to social organization are just as doomed to failure as are
non-scientific explanations of natural phenomena. The noted anarchist, Rudolf
Rocker once stated: "I am an Anarchist not because I believe Anarchism is the final goal, but because there is no such thing
as a final goal" (The London Years, 1956).
Political roots
As Albert Meltzer and Stuart Christie put it in their book The Floodgates of
Anarchy, anarchism
- has its particular inheritance, part of which it shares with socialism, giving it a family resemblance to certain of its
enemies. Another part of its inheritance it shares with liberalism, making it,
at birth, kissing-cousins
with American-type radical individualism, a large part of which has married out of the family into the Right Wing and is no longer on speaking terms. (The Floodgates of Anarchy,
1970, page 39.)
Conflict with Marxism
In rejecting property and the state, libertarian socialists put themselves in opposition to both capitalist democracy and to Marxism. Although Anarchists and Marxists are often said to share a belief in the ultimate goal of a stateless
society, Anarchists criticise Marxism for advocating a transitional phase under which the state is used to achieve this aim.
Historically the movement has often been ignored in the much more visible conflict between Marxism-Leninism and capitalism. Anarchist
movements have come into conflict with both capitalist and Marxist forces, sometimes at the same time, as in the Spanish Civil War. Other political persecutions under either party have
resulted in a strong historical antagonism between anarchists and Leninist Marxists (and their descendants, i.e. Maoists). In recent history, however, anarchists have repeatedly formed temporary alliances
with Marxist-Leninist groups for the purposes of protest against institutions they both reject.
Part of this antagonism can be traced to the International Workingmen's Association (or the First International), a
congress of radical workers, where Mikhail Bakunin, who was fairly
representative of the libertarian socialist view, and Karl Marx, whom
anarchists accused of being an authoritarian, came into conflict on various issues. Bakunin's viewpoint on the
illegitimacy of the State as an institution and the role of electoral politics was starkly counterposed to Marx's views in the
First International. Marx and Bakunin's disputes eventually led to Marx taking control of the First International and expelling
Bakunin and his followers from the organization. This was the beginning of a long-running feud between libertarian socialists and
what they call "authoritarian communists" (or sometimes just "authoritarians").
Some Marxists have formulated views that closely resemble syndicalism, and
thus express more affinity with anarchist ideas. The American Marxist leader Daniel De Leon, for example, who joined and reorganized the Socialist Labor Party in 1890, advocated a form of
"industrial unionism" (known as DeLeonism), which was similar to syndicalism,
although De Leon himself made a point of distinguishing between the two ideologies.
Several libertarian socialists, notably Noam Chomsky, believe that
anarchism shares much in common with certain variants of Marxism such as the council communism of left-wing Marxist Anton Pannekoek. In Chomsky's "Notes on Anarchism", he suggests the
possibility "that some form of council communism is the natural form of revolutionary
socialism in an industrial society. It reflects the intuitive understanding that democracy is severely limited when the
industrial system is controlled by any form of autocratic elite, whether of owners, managers and technocrats, a 'vanguard' party, or a state bureaucracy."
Autonomist marxism and situationism are also regarded as being anti-authoritarian variants of Marxism that closely resemble libertarian socialism.
These arguments are explored more fully at Anarchism and
Marxism.
Philosophical arguments
Anarcho-communism is a sub-category of anarchism which emphasizes the
collective experience as distinct and important in the pursuit of freedom. All forms
of Anarchism recognize the experience of collective identity to some extent, but the Anarcho-Communists, starting with Peter Kropotkin and extending out through Alexander Berkman, Nestor Makhno, and many
others recognized that there was more to experiences which were less individualistic than meets the eye.
Implicitly, the Anarcho-Communists followed a Kantian scheme of classification: like Kant they divided life into its individualistic parts, which have a parallel with Kant's Pure Reason, and the
less obvious parts of life which characterize our relations to one another, which parallels Kant's Practical Reason. To put it
bluntly: no matter how autonomous we might be to ourselves when we're alone, once we start interacting with the world and with
other people our change in circumstance calls for a different perspective.
This follows from our biology. The parts of life that Kant singled out in his work
on Practical Reason are generally not well understood. How does the experience of work actually feel? What do we actually think
when we work? Because of some sort of biological limitation when people deal with these aspects of life they tend to resort to
using obscure and abstract metaphors and analogies to explain what they're talking about.
This is where the difference between Anarchism and Anarcho-Communism shows up most clearly: the Anarcho-Communists have taken
on these hard to explain aspects of life, have desired to understand them, and have integrated strategies for liberation
involving these aspects of life into their overall point of view.
The catch with these aspects of life is that while mental liberation might be amazing, becoming aware of the collective
substructure of life and society leads to deeper liberation than is commonly thought possible.
So in this respect the Anarcho-Communists see themselves as pursuing a fuller definition of liberation than other
anarchists.
Violence in anarchism
Many anarchists see violent revolution as necessary in the creation of an anarchist society. Along with many others, Errico Malatesta argued that the use of violence was necessary in creating
an anarchist society; as he put it in Umanitŕ Nova:
- It is our aspiration and our aim that everyone should become socially conscious and effective; but to achieve this end, it
is necessary to provide all with the means of life and for development, and it is therefore necessary to destroy with violence,
since one cannot do otherwise, the violence which denies these means to the workers. [1] (http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/anarchists/malatesta/rev_haste.html)
For a further discussion of the role of violence in anarchism, see Anarchism and violence.
Criticisms of libertarian socialism
A common criticism, made both by non-socialist libertarians and by
non-libertarian socialists, is that a free market will spontaneously arise unless
it is suppressed by force. Typically, non-socialist libertarians believe that a capitalist economy is natural, rather than
artificial, so it would naturally develop in the absence of regulating factors. Thus they argue that a truly socialist
libertarianism would be an oxymoron. Conversely, non-libertarian socialists don't
want a capitalist economy to develop, so they insist on maintaining the state (often in an altered form) to prevent
this.
The libertarian socialists disagree with both groups of critics, instead arguing that a socialist society can develop and
endure without coercion. Some claim that far from spontaneously arising in the absence of suppression, capitalist economic
relations actually require active political suppression in the form of property
law that is enforced either by a state or (as in anarcho-capitalism) by a private enforcement agency (see: Property is theft). Others (especially anarcho-syndicalists) believe that trade
unionism, direct action and mass organisation among free individuals
would negate capitalism which, similarly, can only be saved by coercion. There are few, if any, libertarian socialists who think
that violence should play an institutional role in a future society. Some anarchists, who have been called anarcho-pacifists, reject violence altogether. Thus, they claim that it is
a straw-man to suggest that libertarian socialists would violently restrict voluntary economic relations between individuals in
the absence of a state. Rather, they believe that capitalist economic relations require public or private enforcement
because they are involuntary themselves, thus resistance against private property enforcement is a form of defense.
Similarly, they argue that free relations in a socialist economy cannot be enforced by an authoritarian state. Such a state
would instead rule out free relations or cause them to quickly deteriorate given the nature of centralized power.
Adherents of the Austrian School of economics argue that the distinction between "personal" and "productive" property is specious, and that consequently paradoxes in their division are doomed to arise regardless of the
delineation chosen. Left anarchists generally disagree that the division is specious, but agree that it is difficult; thus the
decision cannot be trusted to the state (as most socialists propose), but can be made by the people involved in individual cases.
Others believe that the distinction they make is not between personal and productive property, but rather between property that
is "in use" or part of a broader use pattern and property that is "out of use" or used to extort labor from a second party.
Historical origins
Pre-"anarchism" libertarians
Although anarchism is generally considered to be a development in Western
philosophical and political thought, some would disagree. Rejection of coercive authority can be traced as far back as Ancient China, where Taoism is declared
by some to have been the oldest example of anarchist doctrine[2] (http://www.tao.ca/thinking/texts/taoanarch.html). In fact, similar rejections of authority
can probably be found in every society, if one looks hard enough; whether or not they are anarchist is a question for debate.
Anarcho-primitivists assert that for the longest period of
human history, human society was organised on anarchist principles. This
is often framed as a conflict between dominator cultures and archaic
partnership cultures. However their critics claim that such a projection of their abstract principles is simply an adaptation
of the mainstream project of western value systems onto the rest of the world.
In the West, an anti-authoritarian tendency can be traced to Ancient
Greece, with philosophers like Zeno of Citium, the founder of the
Stoic philosophy, who was, according to Peter Kropotkin, "[t]he best exponent of Anarchist philosophy in ancient
Greece". Zeno distinctly opposed his vision of a free community without government to the state-utopia of Plato. "He repudiated the omnipotence of the state, its
intervention and regimentation, and proclaimed the sovereignty of the moral law of the individual." Zeno argued that although the
necessary instinct of self-preservation leads humans to egotism, nature has
supplied a corrective to it by providing man with another instinct—sociability. Like many modern anarchists, he believed
that if people follow their instincts, they will have no need of law-courts or police, no temples and no public worship, and use
no money (free gifts taking the place of the exchanges). Zeno's beliefs, however, have only reached us as fragmentary
quotations[3] (http://www.blackcrayon.com/page.jsp/library/britt1910.html).
There were also movements such as the Free Spirit in the Middle Ages.
In fact, some anarchists assert that anarchism is not so much a movement as an historical tendency; indeed, Bakunin saw
thought and rebellion as the principal tenets of human nature as well as of
anarchism. However, there was certainly no coherent ideology that called itself "anarchism" until the nineteenth century, when anarchism—then often referred to simply as
"Revolutionary Socialism"—emerged as the libertarian side of the growing socialist and communist movements of that period.
Anarchism: a new word
Most of the labor movements of the time were fiercely anti-capitalist, and the resulting organisations produced many utopian visions for how they wished to transform society. Anarchism developed and flourished in this environment,
and had a profound mutual relationship with labor movements until well into the 20th century.
Mikhail Bakunin, a Russian philosopher and the intellectual heir
of Pierre Joseph Proudhon (who adopted the term
anarchist in its modern political meaning) was the first major proponent of the philosophy of libertarian socialism.
Bakunin summarized the philosophy: "We are convinced that freedom without Socialism is privilege and injustice, and that
Socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality." Bakunin's conflict with Marx (discussed above under Conflict with Marxism) was the most visible
and well-known split between "authoritarians" and "libertarians" to take place in the nineteenth century working class movement.
The next major step in the development of libertarian socialism came with Peter Kropotkin, a Russian scientist who developed the philosophy of anarchist communism. His writings
included The Conquest of Bread and Fields, Factories and Workshops.
Kropotkin gave up his nobility and refused the offered position of secretary of an important geographical society on moral
grounds. He traveled across the world, using his training as a geographer to
catalog productivity, and concluded that an admirable lifestyle could be
achieved for all with only five hours of work per day for part of your adult life. He also elaborated an idea called mutual aid, which he believed humans were naturally driven towards.
The spread of ideas: anarchism's influence
Since the 19th century, anarchist ideas have spread through the labor movement, and influenced many radicals and
revolutions.
In the Russian Revolution, after the overthrow of the
tsarist state, many revolutionary movements sprang up all throughout the collapsing Russian Empire. Notable amongst these was an
anarchist peasant movement in Ukraine, usually known as the Makhnovists due to the
influence of Nestor Makhno, an anarchist peasant/general. The Makhnovists
organized resistance against the White counter-revolution, and later on against the consolidation of power by the Bolsheviks, but were eventually crushed.
Mexican Revolution—The revolutionary period in Mexico
was an extended period usually considered to have begun with the overthrow of the dictator Porfirio Diaz and the installation of the moderate Francisco Madero. Instrumental in this transfer of power were the likes of Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata, a mestizo
peasant from the state of Morelos. Zapata and his followers, the Zapatistas, mostly
Native American, advocated for a program of radical land reform under
the slogan "Tierra y Libertad", or "Land and Liberty". This demand, laid out roughly in the Zapatista's Plan de Ayala,
sought to break up the large landholdings (fincas) which maintained power in the hands of the landlords (finqueros)
and kept the indigenous peasants chained into a system of lifelong debt slavery (peonage). This Zapatista movement was
eventually augmented by intellectuals from Mexico City, including the
anarchist Antonio Diaz Soto Y Gama and the brothers Jesus and Ricardo Flores Magón (who coined the phrase "Land and Liberty" that Zapata adopted). These
intellectuals, more articulate than the illiterate peasants (probably including Zapata himself) became the voice for the
Zapatista movement. Zapata quickly broke with Madero, who he felt was not moving quickly enough in the area of land reform, and
continued to fight his government and the successive governments of Victoriano Huerta and Venustiano
Carranza. Madero, Huerta, and Carranza fought each other for control of the Mexican state, but all agreed that Zapata was a
thorn that had to be removed. Eventually, after many years of fighting, Carranza succeeded in having Zapata assassinated (on
April 10, 1917), and subduing the Zapatista
forces.
Especially significant in the worldwide anarchist movement was the anarchist activity in Spain which reached a peak during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) and resulted from many decades of anarchist agitation and education.
The vibrant and widespread support for anarchism resulted in a social revolution that occurred alongside the fight against
Fascist forces. During the civil war, the anti-fascist forces were comprised of
various factions including communists and anarchists. Anarchist groups controlled both territory and factories for a time during
the war, especially in Catalonia. Fights broke out between the communists and
anarchists in some cities, culminating in the Barcelona May
Days of 1937. One of the major anarchist groups from that time, the CNT (Confederación National del Trabajo), still exists in Spain (see [4] (http://www.cnt.es/)). Though the Fascists won and the anarchists came into conflict with the
fascist rebels, liberal democrats and authoritarian communists, many fled overseas (especially to France) and helped bring
anarchist ideas to labor movements around the world.
Labour organisations such as the CNT have often been the focal point of anarchist activity. The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, or
"Wobblies") are an anarcho-syndicalist labor union that was prominent in labor struggles in early 20th century America. They
advocate the formation of "one big union" comprised of all workers everywhere. The IWW made use of militant tactics in order to
effect their demands for improvement in worker's conditions, including sabotage, and popularized the "wildcat strike", a sudden, unannounced work stoppage, as a means of fighting.
While they never advocated straight out violence, they were clear in their intent to defend themselves if attacked, and fought
back with force against policemen and Pinkerton security guards. The Wobblies were openly revolutionary (as many labor unions
were at the time) and saw their struggle for worker's rights only as a tool towards the eventual worker takeover of factories
that the syndicalists envisioned at the time. They were racially inclusive, recognizing that black workers and white workers
faced the same oppression (in a time when many labor unions were exclusive). They faced fierce resistance, both from the bosses
themselves and from the federal government, particularly during the time of the Palmer Raids. This resistance, and the slow process of attrition of revolutionary potential as labor unions
forced concessions from the capitalists, reduced the IWW to tatters by the early twenties. They still survive in some form and
are organizing workers to this day (see[5] (http://www.iww.org/)).
Other prominent anarchists and libertarian socialists include:
Further reading
Books
- Anarchism, George Woodcock (Penguin Books, 1962) (For many
years the classic introduction, until in part superseded by Harper's 'Anarchy: A Graphic Guide')
- Anarchy: A Graphic Guide, Clifford Harper (Camden Press,
1987) (An excellent overview, updating Woodcock's classic, and beautifully illustrated throughout by Harper's woodcut-style
artwork)
- The Anarchist Reader, George Woodcock (Ed.) (Fontana/Collins 1977) (An anthology of writings from anarchist thinkers
and activists including Proudhon, Kropotkin, Bakunin, Bookchin, Goldman and many others.)
- The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin (a 1974 science fiction novel that takes place on a planet with an anarchist society; winner of both the
Hugo and Nebula Awards
for best novel.)
Periodicals
Contrast: Hierarchical organization
External links
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